Road Safety - Everyone's Responsibility

The roads and the highways should be designed and constructed with a purpose to ensure and provide convenient, comfortable, and of course safe transportation of people and different kinds of items or materials. But car crashes and other similar car accidents are very common on the roads. Reports in Australia state that the number of accidents and injuries due to car crashes is getting bigger every year. There is a need for a proper safety equipment for increased safety of the drivers. One very effective road safety system that is widely used all over Australia is the road safety barrier.

The road safety barriers are very useful and effective protective structures that are especially designed to protect and to prevent cars from crashing one into another, and running off the road in case of car crash or other similar accidents. The road safety barriers are similar to the safety fences which are also very effective on the roads. But however, these two road safety systems are different. The safety road barriers are solid and durable structures, designed to be strong enough to withstand high car impacts. On the other hand, the safety fences don not have the capability to withstand very high impacts. Their main advantage is the ability to absorb the kinetic energy and to reduce the force of the impact. The road safety barrier systems are preferred over the road safety fences because they offer many advantages and increase the overall safety level on the roads in Australia.

Many factors can influence drivers to lose control over their vehicles when on the roads, such as: extreme weather conditions, drug or alcohol consumption, inattention or driver error, driver fatigue, speeds above the limit, mechanical failure etc. These and many other factors can lead to very serious car crashes or accidents, severe driver or passenger injuries and even deaths. That's why it is extremely important and essential the roads or highways to be designed and equipped with proper safety equipment like the road safety barriers. A road safety barrier is usually installed at the middle of the road, or at one end of the road. The position where the road safety barriers are installed states their purpose. The main reasons why road safety barriers need to be installed on the roads are the following ones:

• To prevent direct car crashes by preventing out of control vehicles from moving on the other side of the driving path. For this purpose, the safety road barriers are installed on the middle of the highway.
• To protect or prevent out of control vehicles from running out of the road and falling into slopes. For this purpose, the road safety barriers are installed at one side of the road if there is a slope of 5 and more meters.
• To prevent cars from hitting an object or item near the road, like traffic signs, poles, bridge pier and other road side objects.

There are many benefits that can be gained by installing a road safety barriers on the roads and highways, such as: increased driver and passengers safety, reduced traffic jams and congestion, low maintaining costs etc. The road safety barrier systems have an important role to play in reducing the number of car crash accidents, and therefore, should be considered as necessary building structures in all road or highway construction projects.